George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Friday, September 6, 2013

The Bridge 1.9: Trade-Off

The Bridge has really moved into high gear with its game-changing episode last week, and delivered the best episode of of the season so far with 1.9 last night.

Tate is a top-notch bad guy - meaning, he's smart, manipulative, brutal, and supremely unpredictable. Most of the episode is devoted to the harrowing ordeal he draws Alma into. Why she would go off with the kids with someone she doesn't know that well - even though she's romantically attracted to him - still seems like a bit of a stretch, but it was necessary to set up what follows: she's left in a shack in the middle of the dessert, with the girls playing with a hamster, and her hand on a grenade that will blow everything up if she moves her finger. It's just a matter of time until she tires and her finger moves, and she's so overwhelmed that she can't even immediately bring herself to tell the kids to get out of the house.

Fortunately, Gus has unknowingly been texting with Tate, and good police work by Sonya, Hank, and Marco (with an at first inexplicable assist from Tate) get the good guys to the house in the dessert just in time to save Alma and the girls. What the episode is really about is the emotional re-uniting of Marco and his family. Working with Gus to find Alma creates a new bond between Marco and his son, and Alma, grateful to say the least that Marco has saved her and the girls finally hugs him.

But Tate is still at large, and the way that Hank and Marco were able to locate the house in the dessert provides us with a clue about what is to come. After Tate eludes Hank and Marco in their attempt to nab him near a cafe, Tate delivers the GPS coordinates to the house in the dessert to Marco.

Why? I at first thought that Tate wanted Marco to see his wife and children die. And maybe that was one of his reasons. But it turns out Tate had another reason: he wanted to get Marco out of town so he could kidnap Gus. Tate clearly wants Marco's psychological destruction to be comprehensive. And if Tate's attempt to kill Alma only backfired, and drew Marco and Alma back together, Tate now has another shot at what he wants, with Gus under his control. The episode ends not with victory for Marco but this agonizing trade-off.

Meanwhile, the show had some memorable lines - in particular, Sonya's reaction to Gus referring to her as a "MILF," and just about everything that Linder said to Bob. Speaking of which, is it only me, or does Linder sound eerily similar to Hank?

About Me

Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor of Communication &
Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City.His 8 nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997),
Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003), Cellphone (2004), and New New Media (2009, 2nd edition 2012), have been the
subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science
Monitor, and have been translated into 12 languages. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (1999, ebook 2012), Borrowed Tides (2001), TheConsciousness Plague (2002, 2013), The Pixel Eye (2003), The Plot To SaveSocrates (2006, ebook 2012), and Unburning Alexandria (2013).His short stories
have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards.Paul Levinson appears on "The
O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News,"“NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” (PBS),“Nightline” (ABC), NPR, and numerous
national and international TV and radio programs. His 1972 album, Twice Upon a Rhyme, was re-issued in 2009 (CD) and 2010 (remastered vinyl). He reviews the best of
television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog, and was listed in The Chronicle of
Higher Education’s “Top 10 Academic Twitterers” in 2009.

e-mail received from a reader:Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy of The Plot to Save Socrates for seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren's fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchidren. Thanks! Tom